Consumer capitalism dictates that, once basic needs such as food and shelter are met, new demands must be invented, so they can then be supplied. Otherwise production might not appear as a positive increase year-on-year. Squeezing mileage out of ageing goods slows the economy. Old is bad. As a result, Britain is in a state … Continue reading How consumer society creates perpetual generational Cold War→

From the word go, at the height of the cold war, youth culture was only ever the cleverest way of dividing and ruling and alienating working-class kids from their birthright and selling them a form of rebellion which came complete with all mod cons and built-in obsolescence. Just think: all that pain, all that struggle, … Continue reading I’m young, you’re old, I hate you! Now buy me those trousers!→

Old people are increasingly treated as socially redundant and have little or no political clout. Maggie Kuhn, leader of the Grey Panther movement, explains why she believes in a militant approach to the rights of the elderly

It is a peculiar feature of industrial society that the old are treated as socially redundant and Thanks for the Memory, this week’s Brass Tacks (8.10 BBC2), examines the implications. For years pensioners have been fobbed-off by governments who have dispensed formal handouts like charity. But, because pensioners, by definition, are no longer part of the work-force they have little or no collective clout. Recently there have developed pockets of organised political action among the over-60s